BLUE NEMOPHILA. 



Xt'liK'jifiiln his'fii iiifi. 



T would be a difficult task to 

 find a more familiar "-avden 

 flower than the blue nenio- 

 phila; for it is one of the 

 first favourites of the amateiir 

 gardener, and never ceases — 

 as some first favourites do — 

 to retain a hold upon his af- 

 fections, even when he has 

 bloomed into the veteran hor- 

 ticulturist. The beginner mav 

 doat upon the clumps of lovely 

 blue flowers that appear in the 

 l:)orders where, for the first 

 time in his life, he has sown 

 some seeds ; but if he goes on 

 as he began, taking constant 

 interest in flowers, he may 

 chance to see tliis same plant in a shape that tells emphati- 

 cally its popularity. On all the great flower-seed farms 

 it is grown in astonishing quantities, and the growers 

 amuse their visitors by measuring the lines to state the 

 sum-total in parts of a mile. The last measurement we 

 witnessed amounted to three-c|uarters of a mile. 



